Dry Summer Expected for the West

ANGIE WAGNER

Published 7:00 pm, Tuesday, April 8, 2003

Associated Press Writer

Farmer Dan Knisley led his four boys to the edge of Rye Patch Reservoir, where they knelt together. Taking their father's cue, the boys bowed their heads and prayed for that most elusive commodity in tiny Lovelock, Nev., and much of the West _ rain.

"The Bible says if God's people would humble themselves and pray, he would heal their land," said Knisley.

Many are offering the same prayer. The Western drought, now in its fourth year, has many people worried, and the latest data about snowpack amounts and reservoir levels show it'll be a long, dry summer.

Lovelock gets its water from the lower Humboldt River in northern Nevada, but the river is only at 25 percent of its average strength, meaning farmers' income will be virtually nothing this summer. The reservoir is nearly empty.

Across the West, the news is much the same: Westerners are in for little relief from drought. The April 1 snowpack report _ critical because it's typically the last major survey of the season _ was grim.

Reservoir storage isn't much better than the snowpack. Four states _ California, Idaho, Montana and Washington _ are near average, but storage in the rest of the West is well below normal, according to a conservation service report issued Tuesday.

"There's probably not a Western state that is sitting real pretty," said Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist for the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nev. "Nobody is going into the summer season with a real fat supply in their reservoirs."

While the Rocky Mountains, from Montana to northern New Mexico, improved during March, with snowpacks near or just above average in many basins, snowpacks in parts of Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Arizona were less than 50 percent of average.

"It's bad, really bad," said Randy Julander, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Salt Lake City. "We have very poor reservoir storage because we've used a ton of it over the past five years. It makes for a pretty bleak water supply picture."

In Oregon, snowpack is 55 percent of average despite a lot of snow in March. Last year at this time, the state's snowpack was 132 percent of average. Reservoirs in the state are now at only 66 percent of average.

"I can't really think of anything good," said Stan Fox, snow hydrologist for the conservation service in Portland, Ore. "There's going to be shortages for irrigation water, shortages for feeding livestock. Springs could dry up or dry up earlier than usual."

Meanwhile, the drought probably won't get much better.

"Full recovery is going to take almost like a biblical event to happen," said Phil Pasteris, supervisory physical scientist with the conservation service in Portland.

It's not just the water supply that will be hurting. Trees devastated by drought will have a harder time fending off insects, leading to more dead timber that will increase fire dangers. Redmond also said large infestations of Mormon crickets in the Great Basin are likely this summer.

"We don't have a lot to pin our hopes on," he said.

Knisley, 37, knows that, but figures asking for divine intervention can't hurt. He farms 3,000 acres of alfalfa and wheat in rural Lovelock _ 90 miles northeast of Reno _ but might only be able to farm 1,000 acres this year.

He is trying to sell half his farm equipment to raise more money.

"It's just out of my control," Knisley said as his church group prayed for relief in this farming-dependent community. "I pray that God would bring a storm. I pray all the time."

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ Angie Wagner is the AP's Western regional writer, based in Las Vegas.